Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Macarons prepared at La Cuisine Paris cooking school
MATT MUNRO / LONELY PLANET ©
Paris: A Culinary Renaissance
Home to one of the world's great culinary traditions, France has shaped Western cooking
techniques and conceptions of what good food is for centuries - whether it's a multicourse
gourmet meal or a crusty baguette. Blessed with a rich and varied landscape, farmers with a
strong sense of regional identity and a culture that celebrates life's daily pleasures, it's no
surprise that French chefs have long been synonymous with gastronomic genius.
Over the past several decades, though, restaurant culture has started to slip. Frozen and
industrially prepared ingredients, stultifying business regulations and an over-reliance on
formulaic dishes led to a general decline in both quality and innovation. Alarmed by these
foreboding trends, a new generation of chefs has emerged in the past several years, re-em-
phasising market-driven cuisine and displaying a willingness to push the boundaries of tra-
ditional tastes, while at the same time downplaying the importance of Michelin stars and the
formal, chandelier-studded dining rooms of yesteryear.
Even more significantly, the real change that is taking place in Paris today is that more
and more of these chefs - and, just as importantly, more and more diners - are open to
culinary traditions originating outside of France. Some have trained abroad (in what is
surely one of the greatest examples of Gallic pride-swallowing, French chef Gregory
Marchand went to the UK to work for Jamie Oliver), while others aren't even French, ori-
ginally hailing from Japan, the US or elsewhere. The latter group has come to Paris specific-
ally because they love French cooking, but none are so beholden to its traditions that they
are afraid to introduce new concepts or techniques from back home. French cuisine has fi-
nally come to the realisation that a global future doesn't necessarily mean a loss of identity -
decadent work-of-art pastries and the divine selection of pungent cheeses aren't going any-
where. Instead, there is an opportunity to once again create something new.
